I don’t think I was quite in the mood for this, because although I enjoyed the ending, I could never really settle in to the tone, which seemed to hover between farce and pathos. It needed to be more Wodehousian, I think... ( )

in this comic, satiric, novel of manners, Princess Priscilla has grown dissatisfied with life as a privileged princess in a German grand dukedom. Yearning for the simple life, she runs away to England accompanied by the palace librarian and a maid. The simple life is not anything like she expected it to be. Nor is she what the villagers in rural Somerset expected. Very funny with some moments of surprising darkness and intensity. ( )

I'm not really sure what I thought of it. I was not as fond of the asides to the reader by the end as I was at the begining and there was an oddly moralistic tone that seemed cruel and harsh. I'm not really sure why Priscilla came in for so much condemnation and I felt the author judging her very harshly in a way that made me uncomfortable. I have another Elizabeth von Armin on my shelf but now I'm not as sure I will like it.

Princess Priscilla's Fortnight is a fairytale-like story with a moral by Elizabeth von Arnim, first published in 1905. Describing it as a story with a moral perhaps makes it sound quite dry but this is a rather charming tale of a princess of an unnamed German kingdom who finds life as a privileged princess so insupportable that she longs for a simple, ideal life where she can be free to think in peace. In short, she longs to run away.

"To her unfortunately the life within the walls seemed of a quite blatant vulgarity; pervaded by lacqueys, by officials of every kind and degree, by too much food, too many clothes, by waste, by a feverish frittering away of time, by a hideous want of privacy, by a dreariness unutterable. To her it was a perpetual behaving according to the ideas officials had formed as to the conduct to be expected of princesses, a perpetual pretending not to see that the service offered was sheerest lip-service, a perpetual shutting of the eyes to hypocrisy and grasping selfishness. Conceive, you tourist full of illusions standing free down there in the market place, the frightfulness of never being alone a moment from the time you get out of bed to the time you get into it again. Conceive the deadly patience needed to stand passive and be talked to, amused, taken care of, all day long for years. Conceive the intolerableness, if you are at all sensitive, of being watched by eyes so sharp and prying, so eager to note the least change of expression and to use the conclusions drawn for personal ends that nothing, absolutely nothing, escapes them"

The announcement of Priscilla's engagement to a prince from a neighbouring monarchy precipitates her desire to be free and with her lady's maid and her faithful tutor she flees to England where they hope to find a quiet cottage to live in.

But sheltered palace lives have not prepared any of them for the realities of life outside the palace. The idea of housework or rationing their money has never occurred to any of them and they struggle more and more as time goes by. Not only this, but the inhabitants of the small English village are also completely unprepared for the effects that Priscilla has on their small community.

"It will be conceded that Priscilla had achieved a good deal in the one week that had passed since she laid aside her high estate and stepped down among ordinary people for the purpose of being and doing good. She had brought violent discord into a hitherto peaceful vicarage, thwarted the hopes of a mother, been the cause of a bitter quarrel between her and her son, brought out by her mysteriousness a prying tendency in the son that might have gone on sleeping for ever, entirely upset the amiable Tussie's life by rending him asunder with a love as strong as it was necessarily hopeless, made his mother anxious and unhappy, and, what was perhaps the greatest achievement of all, actually succeeded in making that mother cry."

Although Priscilla's tale is told lightly and humourously there is a seriousness to the message behind it and from the biography of Elizabeth von Arnim that I read earlier this year, it's hard not to see it as a lesson she was writing to herself as well as her readers: that the simple life Elizabeth felt she longed for, away from the strict requirements of German high society, might not turn out to be as simple as she hoped.

"But Priscilla's story has taken such a hold on me, it seemed when first I heard it to be so full of lessons, that I feel bound to set it down from beginning to end for the use and warning of all persons, princesses and others, who think that by searching, by going far afield, they will find happiness, and do not see that it is lying all the while at their feet. They do not see it because it is so close. It is so close that there is a danger of its being trodden on or kicked away. And it is shy, and waits to be picked up." ( )

Priscilla, principessa silenziosa e obbediente, è desiderosa di libertà, per questo organizza la fuga verso l’Inghilterra aiutata dall’anziano insegnante.
L’esperienza di vita in un villaggio sarà particolare, considerando che i modi da principessa non possono essere dimenticati con una semplice fuga dal palazzo.
All’inizio stavo trovando il romanzo piuttosto noioso, una volta iniziata la vita nella cittadina inglese mi ha interessato molto di più ed è risultato più scorrevole, anche grazie alla presenza di diversi personaggi dal carattere molto diverso.

---
Priscilla, quiet and docile princess, wants freedom, so she sets up her escape towards England with her old teacher.
The life in a small English village will be a peculiar one, considering that Priscilla’s princess manners cannot be forgotten with a simple escape from the palace.
At the beginning I found the book a little boring, however I changed my mind once begun reading the adventures in England. The book becomes more interesting also thanks to the presence of various characters. ( )